


When Tyranny Becomes Law

by Eireann



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27994095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eireann/pseuds/Eireann
Summary: The events of 'Hatchery' told from Malcolm's point of view.  Warning for some bad language and a lot of snark.
Comments: 24
Kudos: 16
Collections: Reed's Armory Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Paper_Crane_Song](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paper_Crane_Song/gifts).



> Star Trek and all its intellectual property belongs to Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no money made.

‘When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty’, ascribed to Thomas Jefferson.

* * *

* * *

_Hayes._

Isn’t it bloody infuriating when your own advice comes back and bites you in the arse?

OK. I’ll admit it. I did everything but get down on my knees and beg the captain to take more security with away teams when we went exploring. So on that score, I’m happy he’s taking me along on this wander through a crashed Xindi ship we happened to spot on our way to Azati Prime.

And, yes, I ought to be happy that he’s also taking the Incredible Hulk, a.k.a. Major Matthew Hayes, currently the precise area of my universe that equates to an agonising itch that won’t stop however hard you scratch it. Because regardless of my personal opinion of the bloke, I already know he can shoot (thanks very much, Major, I did get the memo on that one), and he wouldn’t be in charge of this crack MACO unit if he wasn’t good at what he does.

So yes. I’m _trying_ to be happy. But it has to be said that my happy-ometer rises a considerable number of notches when the captain makes the decision that the Hulk can go along to guard him when the landing party splits up and Sub-Commander T’Pol, Trip and I can wander off in another direction.

Not that I approve, _per se_ , of splitting one’s forces in enemy territory. I feel it’s not a tactic of which Sun Tzu would have approved either. But thanks to the Xindi’s neat little trick of travelling through vortices and appearing with virtually no warning we may have very limited time to reconnoitre around this crashed ship, and I’m all for the idea of obtaining as much information as we can about the enemy – that certainly _is_ a tactic Sun Tzu approved of.

T’Pol’s been ordered to see what she can do about finding a computer interface to hack into – that sounds a decent plan, and it might be a valuable source of data if she can manage to locate one and get into it. In the meantime, she accompanies Commander Tucker (memo to self, not Trip when we’re on duty) and me through the darkened corridors, hopeful of finding something else that may provide a clue to some vulnerability in these creatures we may be able to exploit.

In an attempt to lighten the rather grim atmosphere in this ship of the dead, I mention Father’s obsession with insects – I certainly wouldn’t imagine Trip (sorry, _Commander Tucker_ ) would ever be comfortable visiting my parents’ house, of which every available wall is burdened with display cases containing ‘bugs’ pinned on boards. It used to freak Maddie out, and there weren’t half as many then as there apparently are now. Aunt Sherrie said it was a wonder the ceilings hadn’t collapsed after he made my old bedroom into his study and put up a new multi-levelled glass cabinet as well as an oak bookcase to hold all his reference books.

(That was probably one of the reasons why he decided he and Mum had to up sticks and move to Malaysia, actually. Weren’t enough fields to conquer in the humble English countryside – well, you really can’t expect an English cornfield to measure up to a Malaysian jungle, I suppose, not in terms of the wildlife.)

Wryly, the commander suggests we might bring him something home for his collection. I’d take him up on it, after Phlox has run all his assorted tests, but I don’t think Mum would approve…

The scanner has apparently found something interesting. Obediently accompanying my senior officers, and keeping an eye out just in case there may be the odd booby trap laid ready, I find myself looking at a strongly reinforced bulkhead with a hexagonal hatch, illuminated by the white glare of our helmet lights. Must be protecting something pretty valuable. Their weapons centre, maybe … I find my fingers itching. There was never a piece of ordnance designed that I didn’t want to catch a look at.

But when we step through the hatch, we find that we’re in an airlock. And the sensors are still functioning, because it instantly fills with an atmosphere that my scanner indicates is breathable.

Well, that’s good – or bad, because my scanner also indicates the presence of biosigns in the room beyond. Faint, yes, but even a dying man can pull a trigger or push a button, and I’m not especially keen to give some weird insect Xindi would-be martyr the chance to take three of us with him.

But even a suspicious bastard like me can’t make the readings look colossally like a baited trap, so very cautiously we open the second door and step through it. You can tell Captain Archer’s not here, because the others let me do my job – a) by being the first one to try breathing the atmosphere in the airlock, and b) by going into the inner room first. And we find ourselves in probably one of the oddest rooms I’ve ever been in.

Yes, there are several consoles, and the light in them suggests that the room has its own separate power source – I’m guessing that they’re some kind of atmospheric controllers. But the strangest thing is that hanging from a number of illuminated fittings on the ceiling and inside the walls are what look like the trailing tentacles of some kind of jellyfish, each containing a gleaming egg.

Now it may just be that these insect-people happen to have a bizarre taste in avant-garde lighting, but there again I wouldn’t bet on it. And weapons may be my sort of thing and engineering may be Trip’s (oops again!), but xenobiology definitely isn’t either of our things, so the commander wisely defers to T’Pol on that score, even while he summons the other members of the landing party to come and see this for themselves.

T’Pol as the Science Officer is probably the most useful member of the landing party at this present moment, so I’m relieved that she’s here to give her attention to what these strange gelatinous lampshades may be. Shortly after being summoned, the captain and Major Hulk arrive, and T’Pol announces that the eggs are the offspring of the crew – two of whom we found dead shortly after we boarded, presumably killed in the crash – and that thirty-one of them are still viable. Not that they will be for long, as our resident Chief Engineer establishes fairly shortly that the remaining units are losing power; at a guess, the independent generator doesn’t have an indefinite life.

Well, none of us are going to shed copious numbers of briny tears about that, so the captain dismisses us to the shuttlebay on the port side, where there’s apparently a shuttlepod that – assuming we can get it hooked up to our own shuttle – will be useful to give us a snoop at their tactical systems. Now this is a language that I talk fluently, assuming Hoshi will be available and amenable to help me with the icons etc, so I hurry away to get to it. You never know, there might be guns aboard to look at. Oh, and we’ll pick up those two dead insect-looking Xindi we found on the way in, for Phlox to have a dekko at. 

As for the captain and T’Pol? I’ve left Major Hulk to look after _them_.

After all, he knows how to do my job better than I do, apparently.


	2. Chapter 2

I’m less than thrilled by the news that Major Hulk – oh, sorry, Major Hayes – and I have been detailed to fly the shuttlepod back to _Enterprise_ , with the Xindi shuttle in tow. We’re leaving our SiC and Chief Engineer on board a wreck that could still contain unspecified threats, although the captain has been returned by transporter; a piece of news that hasn’t filled me with confidence either, given that we still really don’t use that unless it’s urgent. But T’Pol said it was merely a precaution and it was important for her and Commander Tucker to remain a while longer and investigate what they could; and so here I am, piloting the shuttlepod, with two insect-Xindi in body bags and a passenger I’d put in a body bag myself if only I’d got one that was guaranteed soundproof. 

Towing through atmosphere takes a bit of doing, and the thermosphere of the planet is a bit turbulent. As hard as I try to keep the shuttlepod steady, it still rocks a bit as we clear. As a result, one of our resident corpses tips off the bench on which it’s been resting. 

Presumably fearing it might be about to stage a resurrection, Hayes kicks it. Then, apparently still not convinced by its lack of response, he follows my suggestion to strap it down on the bench a bit more securely and then sits beside it with a drawn pistol.

Now I know we had a bit of fisticuffs a while back, but pulling a gun on me seems a tad extreme. I mean, the captain was a bit peeved over the black eye, split lip, detached retina, bruised kidney and assorted other mementoes that we left each other with. I know I’ve occasionally deplored his lax standards when it comes to discipline, but even Hayes can’t think he’d just shut one eye to his Head of Security being shot.

Oh, I don’t know, though… No, I’m just being paranoid. Malcolm, Do Not Think Uncharitable Thoughts About Your Commanding Officer.

Ah. It’s not me he’s worried about. Boot was on the other foot for a minute there, Major… Oh for pity’s sake, he’s off about the senior officers’ training again.

Monday night. Movie Night. The one time in the week when the crew get together and relax.

I try to keep it light. Movie Night is Commander Tucker’s pet, and he will not be happy to be expected to attend even more weapons practice on top of the extra I’ve already authorised. He’s already remarked to me (well, snarled at me actually) that he thought that shooting things was something the MACOs were on board to do, but if _they_ had some spare time he was sure they’d like to take over some duties in Engineering…

“Maybe he can sacrifice some leisure time for the sake of this mission,” replies my _bête noir_ , a bit sassily if you ask me.

Breathe. Slowly. “The senior officers do have other duties. We can’t spend all our time playing holographic games in the Armoury.” Though I’d quite like to have another demonstration, to be honest. I’ve been spending quite a _lot_ of my free time playing holographic games in the Armoury, and I think I just might wipe the smirk off somebody’s face now.

“I’m not sure that’s how the captain would see it.”

Hells bells and buckets of blood, he’s going to play that game again, is he? I’ve just opened my mouth to remind him with a degree of acidity about it actually being correct military procedure to follow the chain of command rather than leapfrogging it to get the results you want, when Hoshi’s voice comes over the comm.

“Enterprise _to Shuttlepod Two. You’re clear to approach_.”

Well. It’s undoubtedly merely postponed the evil hour, but right now I’ve got too much else to worry about to start more shenanigans with Major Headache. That Xindi ship may well have got off a distress signal before it crashed, and we’ll more than likely have a visitor shortly to see about survivors.

“Acknowledged,” I say shortly. “Deploy the shuttle arm.”

Let’s just get us on board and safe to do whatever poking and prying needs to be done. Then I’ll relax.

Although not much.

This is The Expanse, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Mess Hall, and enter one Commander Tucker, scowling.

To be honest I’ve been busy trying to wiggle a way into that shuttle’s tactical console, and not having very much luck. Hoshi’s been as much help as she can, bless her cotton socks, but a lot of it seems to be intuitive. Well, intuitive if you just happen to be an insect-style Xindi that is. When you’re a mere Human there appears to be a divergence in our mental processes that makes life quite unnecessarily difficult. According to what I’ve managed to work out so far, a progression from A to B involves a detour past N when the clock’s showing a quarter to five and W on any day that hasn’t got an S in it, calling at all stations en route with the exception of Bristol Temple Meads, which is currently closed for repairs.

This not being a highly satisfactory conclusion on which to end my day’s labours, when my Beta shift deputy Em came to relieve me I resisted the temptation to throw a hyperspanner at her head (well, she’d only have thrown it back at me twice as hard) and went to have a sulk in the shower. After which I got dressed and came to have a sulk in the Mess Hall, where I’m currently sitting moodily stirring my cottage pie and peas into the lake of gravy on my plate.

The temptation to spread at least some of my foul mood by communicating to my senior officer the fact that his precious Movie Nights are currently the target of a hostile takeover bid by Hayes Incorporated is almost too much to resist, but manfully I conquer it; by the size of that frown, it would be like sending coals to Newcastle. And after all, I haven’t given in and I haven’t given permission, and if Major Pain In The Arse thinks he can leapfrog me again there will be a confabulation of epic proportions, as Aunt Sherrie used to say.

“So why aren’t we going anywhere yet?” I ask as Trip sits down (I can call him Trip now we’re off duty).

His brow is corrugated. “Beats me,” he says shortly as he starts poking his lasagne with a fork as though expecting it to decompose before his eyes.

I blink at him. True, I was so busy all day that I would quite probably have missed the quiver of the ship’s engines going to warp if it had happened, but I have to admit to being surprised to look through the first viewing port and not see the familiar streak of stars speeding by. Time had been pressing us when we first went down to investigate the crashed ship, and every second we lingered increased the chances of us still being in the vicinity if and when a rescue party arrived, presumably not best pleased by our presence and quite possibly heavily armed.

“So you don’t know why we’re still here?”

“Nope.” He shovels a forkful of lasagne into his mouth and sits chewing it.

“Perhaps it’s something T’Pol found out about the Xindi ship that could be useful,” I suggest, forbearing for once to load my voice with innuendo. There are times when it’s safe to try to make some godforsaken attempt at a joke about whatever this ‘neuropressure’ may be that’s got him a free pass to our rather attractive SiC’s quarters of an evening, but I’ve already decided that this is not one of them. Self-preservation may not be particularly my forte, but even I know when to fish and when to cut bait.

“Nothin’ to do with her.” He takes another mouthful. “It’s the cap’n. Wants us to look after those … eggs down there.”

He eats his lasagne for a bit and I stir my cottage pie mush defiantly _widdershins_ , tempting Fate as I try to conjure up a logical explanation for us to be hanging around with a big red X on the hull with the Bridge in the centre of it, waiting for the Xindi to turn up. I really ought to eat a bit, it’s revolting when it’s gone cold. But there again I could always heat it up again if I’m desperate.

It’s no good. I’m going to give my imagination a sprain if I keep this up. “Why?” I ask at last.

“Be- _cause_ ,” he replies, on a note of bitter irony, “their life support’s gonna give out in a day or so an’ it’s our duty to keep ‘em alive.” He jabs his fork savagely into the remaining lumps of lasagne. “The cap’n’s taken an engineering team down. Wants me an’ Travis to work on findin’ out how to operate that Xindi shuttle. So if you weren’t finished with it before, you are now. Won’t be room for all of us to be messin’ around in there.”

It’s no good. I’m now eyeing him in undisguised wonder. “He wants to keep them _alive?_ ”

“Yep. ‘Parently his idea is that if the Xindi find us lookin’ after their babies ‘stead of takin’ a plasma torch to ‘em, it might clue ‘em in that we’re not ruthless bastards like they think we are.”

It occurs to me that if I were a Xindi I’d be more inclined to think the Humans were weak in the head, but that’s probably not a respectful thing to think. Though I suspect that Trip is already thinking a rather colourful variant on it and I don’t think the mention of taking a plasma torch to the room down there is coincidental.

“It’s a theory,” I say cautiously. It’s more appropriate in a public setting than asking whether Captain Archer has mislaid a significant number of his marbles and forgotten that this ship is on a war footing.

He shrugs. “Cap’n’s orders. What do I know?” Then he pushes his plate away, rises and stalks out, presumably to shower and change before getting another dose of neuropressure.

My Irish ancestry must be getting to me. I stir my cottage pie _deiseal_ and then reluctantly start spooning it into my mouth. 

I was right, it _is_ bloody revolting when it’s cold.


	4. Chapter 4

The morning on the Bridge passes uneasily.

The captain is present, but he’s so restless it’s like someone tipped a quart of itching powder into his flight suit. He starts reading a report on a PADD and then vanishes into his ready room. Ten minutes in there and he’s out again. Next thing we know he’s going down to the shuttle bay, where Travis and Trip (sorry, Ensign Mayweather and Commander Tucker) are slaving their guts out in the attempt to work out how to fly that blasted shuttle we rescued. If the helm and navigation aids are anything like the tactical controls, the best of British to them. They’re going to need it.

Looks like he’s not had the response he wants there either. Here he is again, asking if we’ve had any contacts. _No, sir, we haven’t, or you’d have heard the explosions going off against the hull_ , but that’s not a respectful thing to think either so I content with replying smartly in the negative and resuming my constant anxious monitoring of the (so far) blank and innocent vista of space around us and trying not to imagine twenty or so vortices materialising on the far side of the planet and disgorging a couple of fully armed warships each, right out of our sensor range till they come zooming round the planet’s arc and lock weapons on us.

Not getting anything out of me, he jumps on Hoshi, but she’s up to her extremely attractive ears in the Xindi translation and even he has to realise that distracting her is counter-productive. He can’t say much to Ensign Sweetman, currently covering the helm station, because maintaining a standard geostationary orbit around a planet where there isn’t so much as a single piece of space junk to look out for really isn’t overwhelmingly difficult.

No – off to Sickbay this time. God help Phlox, that’s all I can say.

Oh, bloody hell.

That didn’t take long.

=/\=

Lunchtime.

Me, Commander Tucker and Ensign Mayweather in the Mess Hall with our heads together and our PADDs in front of us, for all the world like the three witches in Macbeth conjuring up a sorcerous solution to the problem of the Xindi shuttlepod’s intractable refusal to co-operate. I’ve had lunch because I skipped breakfast and my stomach was growling so loudly it was making it hard for my Armoury staff to concentrate, but the way it’s going this is another one that’s going to be eaten cold.

Commander Tucker (oh, bugger it, Trip) is the best engineer in the Fleet. I myself am no slouch, if nowhere near in his class. And for all that he didn’t get his training through the standard routes, Mister Mayweather is as bright as a button and his formative years aboard his parents’ cargo ship weren’t all spent reading comic books and fantasising about the ladies on Draylax who have more than the usual number. And between us we _still_ can’t get the bloody thing working.

We finally hatch out a plan that _may_ work _if_ we can cannibalise the parts we need out of the crashed ship on the planet’s surface. It’s all a bit too many ifs, buts and maybes for my liking, but in view of our complete inability to come up with anything that definitely _will_ work, it looks like another visit to the Xindi ship is in order. Not that that’s a problem, our own shuttles are plying back and forth to it with men and materiel that would be more appropriate if we were trying to carry out emergency repairs on the _Columbia_ ; it’s not a matter of organising transport, just of grabbing a ride on the next one leaving.

That said, I feel my way cautiously to the subject that’s uppermost in my mind, and ask if there’s any word on how long the captain is planning to keep us in orbit.

“The repairs are movin’ slow.” Trip’s voice is carefully void of expression – never a good sign.

I cogitate on the advisability of pressing the issue, but hell, I’m the ship’s security officer – when we’re in danger, it’s my responsibility to speak up.

“I’d be the last to question the captain’s orders,” I protest, “but doesn’t it seem a little odd that we’re staying here to save a nest of Xindi?”

Trip reacts in a way that suggests I’ve stuck a needle in him and he’s not happy about it. “The Cap’n thinks it’s the right thing to do. We may be at war, but these creatures need our help.”

Hell’s bells, if ever I’ve heard a parrot, one just squawked.

Is it just me? “Meanwhile, their big brothers are trying to destroy Earth!”

Thankfully, it clearly isn’t. Travis has evidently been thinking along much the same lines. “Every day we stay here gives them more time to finish their weapon.”

I’ve said he’s bright.

Which is more than can be said for Commander Tucker, who has apparently been seized by the same affliction as Captain Archer and is now more interested in saving baby Xindi than safeguarding Earth. He gives me the sort of pugnacious look that suggests I stop arguing if I don’t want an interesting mention of ‘insubordination’ on my service record and says, “Look, there’s a chance we’ll run into more Insectoids when we reach that red giant. Spending an extra day or two studyin’ their tactical systems might be useful.”

With which he leaves the table, abandoning me and Travis to sit looking at each other with a ‘What?’ sort of expression. Apart from not having the faintest idea why he should think we might find ‘Insectoids’ anywhere near the red giant (and if we do, there’s no saying they’re going to hang around and chat), we aren’t supposed to be engaging with the little buggers; we’re supposed to be Finding The Damn Weapon And Stopping It.

Well.

That was the idea when anyone last told _me_ about anything.

At least I’m not the only one in the dark around here.


	5. Chapter 5

Right – that’s the tactical report done. As much as it can be done, anyway, but I think it’s as good as I’m going to be able to produce given the issues with the repairs at Bristol Temple Meads…

So I hand it over to T’Pol as she’s off to beard the captain in his new lair. If it wasn’t so worrying that he’s hardly ever here any more I’d be downright relieved, because when he’s not here I don’t have to watch him prowling round the place like a tiger with toothache AND insomnia.

I’d like to say that it’s quieter without him, but it’s hardly peaceful – not with us parked here like sitting ducks waiting for someone to turn up and take a pot shot at us. If someone does turn up, we have personnel down there that we have to rescue before we can act. We can’t use the transporter with the hull plating activated, and having a shuttlepod permanently parked beside the Xindi wreckage is rather like putting a big notice saying PLEASE SHOOT US, WE’RE DOWN HERE.

I’ve watched films on Movie Night where the action takes place in a submarine where there’s a destroyer up on the surface listening for any sound. People have to tiptoe around the place and anyone who drops a fork off a dinner-plate is signing their communal death-warrant. It’s a bit like that here. Not that anyone actually is tip-toeing, but you somehow get the feeling they should be. Because _sooner or later_ that Xindi ship will be missed, and Questions will be Asked. And when someone comes looking for an answer, they’ll find one – _Enterprise_ sitting right over the wreckage. I somehow don’t imagine they’ll look any further than that, even if it was damage to one of the nacelles that caused the crash.

I suppose the only benefit is that Major Hayes hasn’t yet had the chance to murmur in the captain’s shell-like about extra training on Monday nights. Not that he’d get much of a hearing even if he did, not at the moment anyway – any subject that’s not directly associated with that damned hatchery down there gets short shrift from Jonathan Archer these days.

But so far our luck has held, and I’m sitting in my usual seat praying for it to hold out just a little longer when suddenly we have a medical emergency declared down on the surface. Now, strictly speaking that’s Phlox’s department, but the words ‘medical emergency’ when both our captain and his XO are down there sends an icy chill through me. It may have a direct effect on the safety of the ship, and so I hot-foot it down to the transporter, beseeching any gods who may be resident in this hell-hole that it’s no worse than one of the MACOs that have been stationed down there having caught one of his clumping boots on the hatchway and fallen flat on his nose.

But it’s no MACO. It’s Captain Archer in person, and as I arrive he’s handing … something … over to Phlox, who’s come running up the corridor with a medical kit, tunic skirts flying.

I think Phlox is almost as gobsmacked as I am as we stare down at the tiny thing the captain has placed in his hand as reverently as if it was made of spun glass.

It’s an Insect-Xindi baby, clearly hatched from one of the eggs down on the planet. It’s helpless and clearly in distress; as far as I understood the situation, they weren’t expected to hatch for another week or so, so this one must be premature.

“Do whatever you can for it!” the captain orders, his voice hoarse with desperation.

Phlox blinks at him. “Y-yes, Captain, of course…” He almost backs away, and then turns and hurries back down the corridor, presumably in search of a magic wand.

I’m not sure I shouldn’t be backing away from the captain too. Heaven knows how T’Pol can stand to be anywhere near him, because he hasn’t changed his uniform for days and the sticky stuff that drips from those egg sacs is all over him – and its sweetly rotten smell is pungent.

“Everything okay up here, Malcolm?” he asks, rather as if suspecting it isn’t and it’s my fault.

“All quiet so far, sir,” I reply. It’s probably not diplomatic to add ‘apart from a minor hygiene problem, and by the way, sir, did you know your uniform stinks?’ 

“T’Pol’s bringing the shuttlepod back,” he continues. “I’m going to look over the schematics again. There’s got to be more we can do about restoring the power down there…”

He casts a yearning glance up the corridor after Phlox that reminds me irresistibly of Maddie in a restaurant watching the dessert trolley being wheeled away when she was on a diet, and then shakes his head, squares his shoulders and marches nobly off in the direction of Engineering.

At least he’s not going to the Armoury. There are people in there who have access to weapons, and whilst I trust none of them are of a particularly nervous disposition, he’s bloody starting to make _me_ nervous, and I worked in Black Ops.

Oh well. Back to the Bridge.

=/\=

Memo to self: Stop thinking ‘It can’t get any worse’.

I’ve been summoned to the Command Centre, where I find myself with T’Pol and Trip, discussing the mere bagatelle of the captain’s proposal (well, order actually) to give away a third of our antimatter reserves – already low – in order to get that damnblasted hatchery functional.

One of the things I miss about the carefree days in Section 31 is the freedom to actually say what I think about orders from High Ups. Here I have to bowdlerise what’s actually screaming through my head and point out politely that losing that much antimatter would leave us (cough) somewhat short of the wherewithal to power our torpedoes, let alone our bloody engines.

Trip has not, so far, mentioned this to the captain. I can guess why. At this rate, if the only way to get that fucking nursery up and running was to ram _Enterprise_ into the planet and run cables out of the hull, Archer would throw Travis away from the helm and steer us nose-first into the crust.

Naturally I don’t exactly put it that way, but my words teeter on the verge of disrespectful all the same. I mean, when your CO starts playing mother duck to a clutch of alien eggs and forgets what we’re actually _out here_ for, I defy anyone to refrain from sounding a bit peeved about it.

At least T’Pol hasn’t gone ga-ga over them. She has the sense to tell Trip to hold off moving the antimatter.

Me? I’m going back to the Bridge.

And the only thing that cheers me up about _that_ is that it hasn’t got Hayes in it.

Yet.


	6. Chapter 6

“You what?”

Well. Yes, if we’re being specially picky, it’s not language becoming an officer. But it could have been worse.

Much, _much_ worse.

“I saw him escorting the sub-commander to her quarters, sir,” whispers Doyle, while I affix my thumbprint to a PADD that might – for all I’ve been able to actually read it – contain the collected works of Lewis Carroll rather than the Armoury report I’ve been expecting. “And he’s posted a guard outside the door.”

She scuttles back to the Armoury, happy that she’s been able to bring me the news. Not that it’s good news, actually it’s shocking news, but I need to have it.

Hayes again. I swear to God that bloke was sent to be my personal punishment for a past life. Well whatever I did, I bloody well hope I enjoyed it. It must have been a riot to have earned a sentence like this.

 _T’Pol’s been_ _confined to quarters?_

She went down to the surface again to try to reason with Captain Archer about the antimatter. I didn’t envy her that job, but the last thing I expected was for him to have her locked up over it. I suppose I ought to be thankful she’s not in the Brig, but then that’s my province as Head of Security. Mind you, I’m only surprised Hayes didn’t suggest it, by way of schmoozing up to the captain – who needs a Fleeter when you’ve got a MACO who’ll jump when you bark?

I surreptitiously wipe my palms on the thighs of my flight suit. They’re sweating.

I’d ask what’s going to go wrong next, but I’m not sure I want to know.

=/\=

Hayes.

O joy.

“Sir, could you spare a moment while I demonstrate something to you in the Armoury?”

His voice is properly deferential. I reflect that he _might_ be planning to demonstrate the fact that the captain has decided to have me put into one of my own torpedoes and shot into space, but the Armoury probably isn’t the place to do it. It’s not that I’m sure the captain wouldn’t, it’s just that there are usually comforting numbers of my own staff there, and they might have justifiable reservations about having their department head stuffed into a torpedo, probably preceded by fisticuffs and accompanied by a certain amount of bad language.

Besides the waste of a perfectly good torpedo, they know that if I somehow managed to survive I’d put them all on a report for not doing anything about it.

However, there aren’t any indications of a vortex opening – _yet_ – and Travis really doesn’t have to do a lot of helmsmanning at the moment, so I reluctantly hand over the captain’s chair to him and make my way down to the Armoury. Where I find that my very own personal plague has apparently been spending his time playing video games on my battle simulator.

I am naturally rather curt about this at first, as I asked him to look for weaknesses in an Insectoid ship’s shields, given the amount of information we’ve been able to obtain from the crashed one. I’d have thought that instruction was simple enough, but apparently not.

However, it seems I’ve actually done him an injustice. The simulation reveals vulnerabilities that a standard analysis doesn’t, and he’s discovered that the shielding around the ship’s impulse manifolds is minimal. A couple of torpedoes delivered with enough accuracy should be able to take out their engines.

Any advantage we can claw out for ourselves could be a life saver. Now that I have this information, I can feed it into our targeting scanners. If we can get the right angle for a lock, we can take out an enemy ship with one volley.

It’s a valuable discovery and I owe him both thanks and an apology. I won’t say either of them come easily but I get them said, even slipping in a mention that a lot of the crew have been on edge lately. (Me included, but then that’s my standard _modus operandi_ and if I sat at Tactical singing ‘I’m A Little Sunbeam’ I’d be sedated before you could say ‘optimism’.)

“I heard things got pretty ugly down there,” I add casually.

He glances at me as if agreeing. “It’s not every day I’m asked to confine a senior officer.” But then, quite deliberately, “I can’t say I disagree with the captain’s decision. If one of my men disobeyed orders I’d throw him in the stockade.”

I veil my gaze. The Section taught me long ago that you don’t have to ask questions to get the information you need.

“I’ve got to get back to the Bridge. Let me know if your simulation finds anything else.”


	7. Chapter 7

It was only a matter of time, of course.

Travis reports a subspace vortex opening off the port bow, and the battle is on. Fortunately the captain is currently on the ship, but he’s left me in command. Until he appears and takes over in person, it’s down to me to make the decisions.

“Tactical alert. Captain Archer, report to the Bridge.” I keep my voice cool, though adrenaline’s started to course through my body.

Hoshi’s manning the scanners, and reports that it’s an Insectoid ship with three biosigns aboard.

“They're firing!” Travis sounds commendably steady, and his confidence is justified when although the ship judders to the impacts against the hull, the plating holds. We’ve studied what these ships’ weapons consist of, and when our defences are up they’re capable of withstanding anything that the Insectoids can throw at us.

Unsurprisingly, having made no particular dent in us, the enemy decide to decamp rather than hang around waiting for our reply.

“Pursuit course. Arm phase cannons. Disable their engines.”

They have shielding of their own, of course. The phase cannons have little or no effect. But, undoubtedly realising that we have much more powerful weapons in reserve, the enemy crew clearly decide that being elsewhere in the universe would be safer than trying to outrun or outfight us.

“Their main deflector's charging,” reports Hoshi. “They could be trying to open a vortex.”

I’m not having that. “Torpedoes. Maximum yield. Target their impulse manifolds.”

Ensign Fuller’s manning Tactical. He’s got everything lined up. “Ready.”

“ _Fire!_ ”

One torpedo misses. The other doesn’t. The Insectoid ship explodes just as Captain Archer comes on deck.

He looks at the screen and then at me as if I’ve just murdered a homeless orphan in the snow. “What the hell's going on?”

After all the time we’ve spent looking at the one on the planet I’d have thought he might have recognised it, but perhaps not. “An Insectoid ship, sir.”

“You _destroyed_ them?”

Well, I suppose I could have invited them over for tea and cake, but somehow the possibility slipped my mind. “They were opening a vortex. They would have escaped.”

He glares at me. “The crew might have been able to take care of the hatchery!”

It’s no good. He’s lost me. “Sir?”

“We could have kept our antimatter and continued the mission!”

One of us has gone mad. I’m hoping it’s not me, so I explain carefully. “They would have told their superiors, sir. Given away our position.”

He responds as if he’s spelling it out to a gibbering idiot. “If you'd _explained_ to them why we were here, you might have avoided a fire fight!”

Well if there are any gibbering idiots around here, right now they’re wearing four rank pips, not two. “With all due respect, sir, they didn't seem particularly interested in talking.”

“Archer to Major Hayes,” he almost snarls into the comm.

“ _Go ahead, Captain_.”

“Report to my Ready room, on the double.”

“ _Aye, sir_.”

He turns back to me. “I'm relieving you as Tactical officer. From now on, you'll report to Major Hayes.”

I stiffen. “I did what was necessary to protect this ship and its mission.”

I might as well have been talking in Swahili. He looks at me as if I’m something he just wiped off the sole of his boot. “You'll be confined to quarters until further notice.”

It hurts. Pity knows why, but it hurts. I can’t help making one last appeal, though I already know he’s not even listening. “Captain…”

“Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.” I turn and leave the Bridge. 

He apparently erases me from his mind as though I’ve ceased to exist. The turbolift door closes, but I hold the brake button for a couple of seconds, listening intently at the crack between the panels.  
  
“Are you done with that translation?” he demands

“Almost.” She sounds like she’s talking to a stranger – a frightening stranger.

“I want you to put together a distress call in the Insectoid language. Transmit it on all frequencies as soon as you're ready.”

“Understood.”

I release the brake and lean my head against the metal side of the lift car.

What the _fuck_ ’s going on?


	8. Chapter 8

Fortunately for both my patience and my fragmenting grip on belief in a sane universe, Trip and Phlox have had their heads together.

My sojourn in my quarters is exasperating but brief. I am very shortly sprung from my incarceration and plotting how to free T’Pol from the same durance vile, but unfortunately for our plans, Major I-Can’t-Say-I-Disagree-With-The-Captain has had time to post a guard outside her room – presumably he simply hadn’t got around to ordering one to guard me, which was an oversight he will hopefully live to regret. Though maybe he was detained in the captain’s Ready Room to listen to him rambling about his nasty spiteful officers who don’t care about dear little eeny weeny Insectoid babies who will grow up to be horrible big Insectoid warriors who have ambitions on blowing Planet Earth to smithereens.

Well, OK, maybe he might not get to that bit, or even Hayes might smell a rat.

Phlox isn’t the world’s foremost expert on sneaking around the place, but bless him, he does his best. And with Trip apparently having previous form on getting into T’Pol’s quarters for neuropressure, it’s reasonable enough for him to argue when Corporal Chang tries to keep him out of them. Which he does so successfully that Phlox and I manage to creep up behind the unfortunate corporal and the next thing Chang knows is that I’m levelling a phase pistol at him. His next impression (though only a brief one, I’d imagine) is that there’s a hypospray hissing at his neck. After which he doesn’t know anything much about anything at all, and we’re able to dispose of the body (yes, all right, he’s only stunned, but it sounded good) somewhere it won’t be in the way.

This accomplished, it’s time for a hasty council of war in T’Pol’s quarters.

The Captain gave Hayes control of the Bridge before returning to the wrecked Insectoid ship, and not unnaturally our good Major has posted MACOs at strategic points on every deck.

Suspicious bastard.

“Is he still on the surface?” asks T’Pol, meaning the captain. He’s hardly likely to be anywhere else, but on Trip’s confirming it she says that retrieving him and the antimatter should be the priority.

As much as I respect her as our current senior officer, I’m the tactical officer and this sort of scenario is something I’ve trained for. “I'd advise securing the Bridge first. If Hayes gets wind of this we could have a fire-fight on our hands.”

Phlox is always the optimist. “Perhaps we should approach the Major and explain the situation. He seems like a reasonable man.”

God bless his cotton socks, he can’t help seeing the hopeful side. I, on the other hand, am paid and trained to see the worst – and plan for it – and I’ve already picked up Hayes’ follow-the-orders mindset. “That would be risky. If Hayes sides with the Captain, this mutiny will be over before it begins.”

 _Mutiny._ Nobody has actually said the word until now, but that’s what this is: a revolt against our captain. It could go on our records – assuming any of us live to see Earth again. 

But what else can we do?

Fortunately, T’Pol accepts my more cautious view. “We'll need more people. Who's on duty in the Armoury?”

“Ensign Walsh and two of my men. They'll side with us, but Hayes posted two MACOs there.”

Luckily for us, the two MACOs are not particularly on the alert. T’Pol changes into a Starfleet flight suit (in which she looks remarkably fetching, though I won’t mention it) and, her face hidden by a cap, makes her way down the stairs from the high level Armoury access. She takes out one of the MACOs with a neck pinch and I take out the other with a phase pistol blast (all those hours of playing holographic games in the Armoury are paying off!), and even if he _will_ have a bruise from it I’m struggling to feel apologetic.

I detail Walsh to accompany Commander Tucker to the surface to deal with Captain Archer – pity knows what he’s up to down there, but it’s gone far enough. T’Pol, Delaney and Morgan follow me towards the turbo-lift, but Hayes has positioned guards there and there’s no way we could take them out without the alarm being raised; we could shoot them, of course, but the sensors on the Bridge would pick up weapons fire. I was safe to discharge a phase pistol in the Armoury because, being a sneaky little git, I’d disabled the internal sensors from the outside before we went in. Unfortunately for us, the panel I’d have to use to do it here is in full view of the guards, which might involve a bit of difficulty if Awkward Questions were asked.

A frontal assault therefore being out of the question, we split up and take the access ladders. There’s one of these on either side of the rear of the Bridge, and T’Pol goes up the one that exits beside the turbo-lift and I take the one that exits beside the Situation Room.

We’ve checked our chronometers are synchronised and arranged an attack time. I get into position a couple of moments early and stand beside the door, my pulse drubbing.

On the other side of the metal, Hayes’ voice is clearly audible, answering the comm.

“Go ahead.”

“ _Major, Corporal Chang's been found unconscious in T'Pol's quarters_.”

Three

“Where's T'Pol?”

Two

“ _Not here, sir_.”

One

“Hayes to the Armoury. Armoury, respond.”

… _Zero!_

  
I’ve done this so often in training situations, but though the assault works perfectly, it ends in a standoff. I suppose it was fairly inevitable that I was going to end up pointing a phase pistol at Major Hayes’ thick head, while he points his at mine.

“Stand down!” I order.

Credit where it’s due, he doesn’t waver. He even has the nerve to make a joke, using more or less my own words from when we were towing back the Xindi shuttle. “You intend to shoot me, Lieutenant?”

I’m not caving, and this time I'm definitely not going to miss. “Tell them to stand down.”

“The Captain relieved you of duty. Both of you.”

Well, right at this moment the Captain’s barking mad, but that’s not something I’m going to blurt out. I just keep my phase pistol levelled and stare him down.

T’Pol speaks, her voice even. “We don't want anyone injured. Put down your weapons.”

He’s not buying it from her either. “Until the Captain says otherwise, I give the orders on this Bridge.”

From a military standpoint, he’s right. This, of course, is why it’s not always an act of unparalleled wisdom to have a MACO as your tactical officer. Military training is all about straight lines, whereas the Expanse has more curves than a roller-coaster. You have to be able to recognise when straight lines lead you nowhere except defeat.

Hayes looks towards Hoshi. “Contact the Captain.”

“Belay that.” T’Pol’s in her own standoff – with Mackenzie – and interrupts coolly.

“I gave you a direct order, Ensign.”

Hoshi, like me, understands about straight lines and curves. And she knows who to trust, after all this time. “I'm sorry, Major.”

Keeping me carefully covered with his pistol, Hayes moves towards the captain’s chair to open a comm. channel himself.

Travis, in the meantime, has had the excellent sense to keep still and quiet. As soon as he sees his opportunity, however, he jumps him and the firefight is on.

Morgan gets stunned, but both the other two MACOs go down. Taking instant advantage of Travis’s quick thinking, I stride forward and hold a pistol to Hayes' head. He’s still in Travis’s grip on the floor, and still has his own weapon, but I could fire before he could raise it. “It's over, Major.”

He doesn’t like it. Why should he? But he’s a realist, and I’m not joking. Sullenly he hands over the pistol to Travis.

I suddenly feel extremely tired. “Take him to his quarters.”

“Aye, sir.” Travis ushers him to the turbo-lift. If we manage to make it through this, I’ll be recommending Mister Mayweather for a commendation for quick thinking and decisive action. It’ll be interesting to see if Captain Archer signs off on it…

At that moment Hoshi picks up the comm. “It's Commander Tucker.”

“Put him through,” says T’Pol. “Go ahead.”

“ _We've got the Cap’n. What's goin’ on up there?_ ”

“The Bridge is secure.”

“ _Tell Phlox to get the imagin’ chamber ready. We’ve got a patient for him._ ”


	9. Chapter 9

With the captain secure in our hands, there’s really no point in Major Hayes continuing to hold out against us. We retake command of the ship and the MACOs are stood down and relieved of duty while Captain Archer is delivered to Sickbay, where Phlox straps his inert body onto the table that will take it into the imaging chamber. Being of little further use there, I retire to the Bridge. It’s understandable that his XO and Chief Engineer want to be on the scene when the results are delivered but I’m uneasily conscious that we’re still deep in enemy territory – heading deeper into it with every second, now T’Pol has ordered we resume course to Azati Prime – and I’ll continue to hold the chair until relieved.

It’s a worrying wait, though, on more than one score. We may have concluded from the captain’s increasingly erratic behaviour that he’d been influenced by some ‘chemical cocktail’ that the eggs squirted at him (and which nobody saw fit to mention to me AT THE TIME or I might have put two and two together a hell of a lot faster, but hell, don’t mind me, I’m just the ship’s security officer; and as long as we get there eventually I suppose…), but Phlox couldn’t verify that until he’d been able to get him into the imaging chamber. And now that he’s in there, with any luck they’ll find out how this stuff was able to get control of him and – more importantly still – how to counteract its effects. Because one doesn’t necessarily imply the other, even with a genius like Phlox. And if he can’t work the miracle we’re stuck with a CO fixated on baby Insectoids for the rest of the mission.

I daresay we’d manage. Somehow. But the circumstances are dire enough without having your captain taken out of the equation because he’s as barmy as a bandicoot. The whole crew looks up to him, we depend on him. I don’t even want to think about what would happen if we can’t get him out of this.

I’ve never been much for Biblical quotations but the words ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand’ keep creeping through my mind. Hayes is on Captain Archer’s side, end of. If we have to confine the captain it’s Hayes’ duty to try to rescue him. We’d have MACOs versus Starfleet, neither side able to trust the other, fighting each other while we’re trying to deal with the exponentially bigger threat of the Xindi. It’s that sort of flaw that breaks armies when the pressure comes on. We need to be united. We need to be strong.

As for the act of mutiny – the _crime_ of munity – well, in spite of my Reed heritage that says my ancestors should be spinning in their coffins, my heart is strangely at peace on that score. Whatever may be wrong with the captain at this present moment, he’s imbued us all with the passion that’s driven us since we set out from Earth: _stop the weapon._ And if the cost is my career, well, so be it. We weren’t going to be stopping anything, obsessing over those baby Insectoids till their grown-up friends and relatives turned up to exact revenge for something we actually hadn't done. Desperate actions were required, and we took them. Only history (if the mission succeeds well enough for us to actually _have_ any history) will judge whether we were justified or not.

An hour creeps past, and then another. It’s almost the end of my shift but I don’t want to stand down; I couldn’t eat, and I sure as hell couldn’t sleep.

In the middle of the tense silence, the comm chirps. “ _T’Pol to Lieutenant Reed._ ”

“Reed.”

“ _Please bring Major Hayes to Sickbay, Lieutenant. T’Pol out.”_

From her calm voice there’s no saying what the news is, but surely there’s got to be something they need to show him?

Just to be on the safe side, I arrange for Ensign Walsh to accompany us, with a phase pistol that can be used if necessary. To be fair, I don’t think it will be – however determined and resourceful Hayes is, he's also a realist – but I see no point in taking chances.

The ensign stops and waits outside Sickbay while the two of us walk in.

T’Pol, Trip and Phlox are looking at something on a view screen.

Of course, Hayes looks around for the captain. “Where is he?”

“In his quarters, resting,” Phlox replies amiably. “Do you recall when the Captain was attacked by one of the eggs?”

“It sprayed something in his face.”

Phlox continues, gesturing at the display screen. “I thought it was a defence reflex, but it was actually something far more sophisticated. The substance contained a unique neurochemical. It infiltrated the Captain's synaptic pathways, causing him to reverse imprint on the baby Insectoids. It's the opposite of what happens when a young animal bonds with its mother.”

Hayes gives him the disbelieving expression (not surprisingly, to be honest). “Are you saying he thought he was the _mother_ of those things?”

“Well, more likely a caretaker. Of course, the Captain didn't realise this on a conscious level. Eventually he became obsessed with protecting the eggs to the exclusion of everything else.”

“Including our mission,” says T’Pol dryly.

The major stares at the screen, clearly evaluating the situation. “I'd like to speak with him, if you don't mind.”

“He'll be awake in a few hours. He should be fully recovered by then,” Phlox says cheerfully.

T’Pol then turns to the major herself. “I want you and your men to return to duty.”

She’s the officer in charge now and he knows it. Whatever his doubts, he’ll set them aside until he can speak to the captain. And if the captain has been released to his quarters to rest, it’s because Phlox has administered an antidote and the situation has now been resolved. “Yes, ma'am.”

Satisfied that there’s nothing more for either of them to do, T'Pol and Trip leave Sickbay; at a guess she’ll be going up to take charge on the Bridge, and personally I’m more than relieved to be able to hand over command.

Hayes lingers for a few moments, still staring at the display screen. Finally, “Not the sort of thing they trained us for at West Point.” It’s as close as he’s going to come to – if not an apology – an admission.

“I imagine not.”

He turns to me then, his expression hard to decipher. “You could have come to me, explained the situation.”

Oddly enough, I feel a little sympathetic. Well, more sympathetic than I usually do to him, and I daresay it won’t last – certainly not past his next venture into rearranging the ship’s training schedules. And, having won, I can afford magnanimity. “We couldn't take the chance that you'd side with the Captain.”

This is where he could try bullshitting me, but once again he surprises me. “I probably would have.”

“Yes.”

There’s nothing much more for me to say, and most likely I’m not his favourite person aboard _Enterprise_ at the best of times and certainly not now. But almost before I realise I’m going to do it, I turn back at the door and glance at him. “Would you care for a coffee, Major? We could talk a little more about those simulations you were experimenting with.”

He blinks in surprise, and then a faint, hesitant smile creeps over his face. “I’d be happy to, Lieutenant.”

Peace? I doubt it. A truce? Maybe. Permanent? Ask me next time he utters the words ‘I don’t think that’s how the captain would see it’. But out here we’re all we’ve got. And if we’re going to succeed against the Xindi, the house _cannot_ be divided.

There’s a whole world behind us who are depending on it.

**THE END.**

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews make me very happy. If you've enjoyed this, please leave one!


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